Undark: Amid Fear and Guns, Polio Finds a Refuge
“…Poliovirus is so cunning, so contagious, so devastating, that a single case of poliomyelitis, the paralysis-inducing disease it causes, sends up the flares as a public health emergency, which quickly ignites international concern. … Most tellingly, it is in the badlands of Boko Haram, the Islamist extremists of northern Nigeria, along with stretches of the Pakistan and Afghanistan border controlled by the Taliban, where the planet’s last nurseries of wild poliovirus are found: no-go zones where terrorists actively stop vaccine from reaching babies and children…” (Chandler, 10/16).